


Home Is Where The Heart Is

by ForbiddenToast



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Mental Illness, Reminiscing, idk what to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 05:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12499840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForbiddenToast/pseuds/ForbiddenToast
Summary: On a coffee table in a therapist’s waiting room somewhere in Illinois is where he finds it; a thirty-five page magazine filled with not-so-helpful advice on how to paint your hallway a welcoming colour, how too many pillows spoil the décor of an entire room and how the ‘Cacti Craze’ is killing gardening stores’ business.It's mind-numbingly boring, and Pete's just about to put it back when he sees the article on page thirty-three:How Your Home Reflects You





	Home Is Where The Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

> Just something short I wrote, I'll probably come back and edit this later to fix the mistakes that must exist somewhere.

On a coffee table in a therapist’s waiting room somewhere in Illinois is where he finds it; a thirty-five page magazine filled with not-so-helpful advice on how to paint your hallway a _welcoming_ colour, how too many pillows spoil the décor of an entire room or how the ‘Cacti Craze’ is killing gardening stores’ business.

It’s mind-numbingly boring, but it beats the two-year-old issues of _Vogue_ and the slightly ironic self-help magazines that lie beside it, so Pete picks that one to thumb through. It’s either that or make small-talk to a dull eyed teenager sitting across from him – and while his heart seizes at a kid that young being in here he knows from years of this that having a stranger try to talk to you while you wait for your therapist is the last thing you want. The rules in a waiting room are simple: you stay quiet, don’t judge the equally troubled people in here and wear a big hoodie on the off chance you could get recognised in here of all places.

So the interior design magazine it is.

Glancing up at clock Pete realises he has half an hour to kill. He’s overestimated the traffic again in his bid to not be late to another session and in his haste out the door forgot his phone, which would’ve spared him reading the magazine and given him the chance to beat Patrick's Candy Crush high score. 

He flits through the piece on gardening at the front, pausing to see how well organised the flowerbeds are and spares a thought to his own neglected ones at home that are overrun with weeds after two months away while he was on tour. He should fix that when he gets home, maybe he could pick up some new plants on the way back.

After that though the magazine is the boring, run-of-the-mill stuff designed to inspire stay at home moms to spruce up the home a bit, and he’s just about to set the magazine down and decide to count the tiles on the reception desk (even though he knows from the past it’s twenty and a half) when he catches the last article's title.

_How Your Home Reflects You_

He reads it quietly, careful not to turn the pages too quickly and accidently irritate someone. It’s better than the other thirty-three pages and talks about how the layout of a room shows what someone prioritises in their life and how clean it is reflects their state of mind.

It’s bullshit, Pete knows this. It’s just something to run up the page numbers to please the editors of the company who published it.

But it does get him thinking about his own home and how it has changed with him.

He remembers years ago whenever going home was a distant thought, but then back then he didn’t even know where home was. Between towns and shows and cramped sleeping conditions in the back of a van the thought of his own bed in that shared apartment felt foreign and strange.

Maybe it was constantly being around new faces that made him want to stay on the road forever, he thinks as he moves on to the page about house plants.  He was lost then, like his own frame of mind that was quickly running away, a whirlwind into unfamiliar territory that was both exciting and terrifying.

Then there _was_ home five years ago, when he loved walking through the door. The soft carpet underneath his toes and his girlfriend’s dog bouncing around his ankles. Going home then and getting to sleep in a _stationary, unmoving bed_  was a privilege he lived for. It still is now, but back then it was still felt strange to be excited to go home. _Maybe it’s an age thing_ Pete thinks to himself.

And then the foundations had come tumbling down, both for Pete's relationship and his mental state.

Pete had despised his house then, letting it turn into a mess he was never in anyway. The very thought of the four walls and itchy carpet made his stomach twist. She would be there. She would be there, ready to start another argument over him never being home enough, and it was true, he wasn’t. It wasn’t home and he spent most of his nights in Chicago on a friend’s couch instead of in his own bed.

When they had inevitably broken up Pete’s house became a hell. It was too quiet, no pitter-patter of the dog’s feet to break up the long silences and the kitchen had too many cups. Too many bowls and too many plates for one man who ate alone every night.

His bedroom had felt like a prison, and soon wallpapered walls began to feel like bars and the double bed and the half-empty wardrobe felt like a punishment. It was cold in the house too, since he never bothered to put on the heating.

It wasn’t like he had any guests or animals to keep from developing hypothermia, that had been the time he had drove everyone away with cold words and a concrete heart. His logic then had been if he got hypothermia then it meant he got to spend the night in a hospital bed that didn’t have any signs of _her_ in it, like the earing Pete had found in a pillowcase three months into her absence.

Though Pete remembers the bathroom being the worst room in the house then. There was no mess from make-up stains on the white tiles anymore, no extra toothbrush to keep his company during the night and none of _her_ strawberry shampoo to use whenever his ran out.

Pete remembers hating his house four years ago because the emptiness reminded him of how alone he was and how it was all his own fault. It reminded him that the Pete Wentz in the street wasn’t the same Pete Wentz who smashed the extra plates whenever he ran out of his medication, or the same Pete Wentz who sat by the answer machine and hoped _she_ or _anyone_ would call at four in the morning to see if he was okay.

He’s quick to remind himself that it did get better soon after that though. When he’d finally plucked up the courage to call Patrick instead of waiting for someone to call him. Then he’d called Andy, and then Joe and before he knew it the three of them were in his living room talking about the band.

It gave him a reason to turn on the heating, and soon after that, it was the main driving force for him to start therapy again because if he wanted to get better he had to make himself better.

And then the bricks started falling into place.

Soon the guest bedroom was being used again, and the kitchen had more than one dirty plate in the sink and his bin was overflowing with old drafts for new songs. There was laughter filling the living room, the clatter of jackets and bags being left in the hall whenever the guys would visit. A hat that wasn’t his accidentally left behind whenever they left that would keep him company until the next day.

Two years ago his house began to feel like a home again.

He started looking forward to nights in Chicago again. He remembers nights spent with Patrick binge-watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer and days ripping wallpaper off his bedroom walls, repainting that turned into chasing Patrick with a dripping paintbrush and eventually cream-coloured kisses in the hallway as his best friend held onto him, smearing the paint on Pete’s shirt in between pauses for breath. 

Pete’s pretty sure there’s still paint clinging to the banister from that night.

Then there was this year, when his bathroom finally began to feel warmer too, making his house truly a home.

There’s no makeup stained tiles...but there is a box of contact lenses in the cupboard, his toothbrush has a friend to keep it company, and there’s even terrible two-in-one shampoo to use whenever Pete’s runs out.

But most importantly, Pete has Patrick next to him at night, while his glasses lie beside Pete’s book on the bedside table, and a tiny, fluffy dog to keep Bowie company in the kitchen that he can hear pit-pattering about whenever Patrick’s asleep and curled around him.

Pete’s in the middle of remembering the day Patrick moved in. With a box of records and a rucksack of clothes, asking Pete if he was sure this wasn’t too fast. How he’d forgotten to bring pyjamas and looked so flustered while digging through a rucksack of jeans and t-shirts and looked as red as a tomato when he had to ask Pete if he had anything old he could borrow, until tomorrow.

He's just remembering how his heart swelled whenever he seen Patrick walk down the stairs, brushing his teeth with too long pyjama pants pooling around socked feet and-

“Mr Wentz? Christine is ready for you now.”

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by the receptionist and he glances up at the clock to see it’s eleven thirty exactly. Pete quickly stands up, throws the magazine onto the table and makes his way to a too familiar room where he’ll no doubt proclaim his new found appreciation for home improvement.

Or rather, all Pete can think of as he reaches Christine’s door is that he hopes this hour goes in quickly so he can get _home._


End file.
